


Mob Mentality

by buoyantsaturn



Series: Mafia [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Blood, M/M, Mafia AU, a lot of it, its a mafia au what do u expect though, no graphic depictions of violence or injury but like both are in there still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 20:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11134290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buoyantsaturn/pseuds/buoyantsaturn
Summary: Nico is the most terrifying mob boss in New York, and Will is his live-in doctor.A Mafia Au





	Mob Mentality

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for 200 followers on tumblr!!!!

Will woke up, head pounding, tied to a chair. He must’ve been blindfolded -  _ or maybe just  _ blind, his mind supplied unhelpfully - because no matter how many times he tried opening his eyes, he couldn’t see anything. Thankfully, his grogginess allowed him a few moments to  _ think _ before he started to panic, but it didn’t do him any good. He couldn’t remember what had happened, or how he’d gotten into this situation. He’d have to guess that somebody hit him in the head if the ache in his temple was anything to go by, but the last thing he remembered was walking out of the grocery store after spending his last twenty dollars.

Now he was here. Tied to a chair. Somewhere.

That’s when the panic set in.

He tried to keep himself as calm as possible, but his racing heart was pretty distracting, especially when there wasn’t much else to focus his attention on. 

He heard a muffled voice, like it was coming from another room, or through a door. He heard footsteps, then a door swinging open almost silently. A deep voice said, “In here, Boss.”

Will had a moment of panic -  _ hah, _ a  _ moment _ \- where he wasn’t sure whether he should pretend to still be unconscious, or keep his head up and try to figure out what was happening. He lost his chance to decide when he stiffened, head up and mouth pressed shut, when something that must’ve been a finger traced across his shoulders as someone walked behind him. 

A phone rang, and Will jumped in his seat. A different voice than the first, softly accented, groaned, “Kill me,” and the ringing stopped. The same voice continued in another language, something Will couldn’t follow, and he heard the rustling of fabric, like someone falling back onto a couch.

Seconds passed, maybe minutes, maybe longer. Will wasn’t sure; whenever he tried counting the seconds, he got distracted by his own pounding heart. He wished that would  _ stop, _ because he was starting to feel like he might throw up and he  _ really _ needed to calm down.

Someone snapped their fingers a few times, and the foreigner - Will guessed - raised his voice slightly. Something tugged on his blindfold. He heard, “Yes, you idiot,” before the man switched back to the other language, and Will’s blindfold fell away. 

Will shied away from the light momentarily before his eyes adjusted, and his gaze landed on a man lounging in an armchair across the room from him. He was  _ breathtaking, _ and Will kind of hated to admit it. This was the guy that kidnapped him, right? Will didn’t want to think about him like  _ that,  _ but he couldn’t help it. His legs were thrown over the arm of the chair, head tossed back over the other arm as he continued speaking, his pale neck on perfect display. 

The man’s eyes locked with Will’s from across the room, and Will’s heart stopped  _ (finally). _ He suddenly  _ really _ wanted to know what that man was saying. Was he talking about Will? Was he talking about  _ killing _ Will? That’s what was going to happen, right? Will was going to die. He was kidnapped, and now he was going to die.

The man said a few short things into the phone, finally ending with an,  _ “Addio,” _ before ending the call and gracefully rising from the chair. He stalked forward slowly, and Will’s heart restarted, pounding just as rapidly as before. The man slipped one hand into the pocket of his dress pants, the other reaching over Will’s shoulder to brace on the back of his chair. He smiled softly, eyes flicking up to look at something behind Will. “I was hoping you’d find someone pretty,” he said, the accented words rolling off his tongue easily. He hummed as his eyes fell back to Will’s. “A doctor, yes? Doctor what?”

“Solace,” Will said quickly. “Doctor William Solace.”

“William Solace,” the man repeated, his accent drawing out the name until it sounded more like  _ Weel-i-um. _ His hand slipped out of his pocket, reaching behind himself and pulling out a gun, resting it over Will’s other shoulder. “Will.”  _ Weel. _ “May I call you Will? There is a man standing behind you. If I shoot him, can you save his life?”

Will couldn’t have heard that right, could he? “What?” Will asked.

The man raised an eyebrow, and the gun went off, his eyes never leaving Will’s as he fired. Will jumped at the sound, head snapping to the side to try to get a look at the man behind him, but the man in front of him grabbed Will’s chin, turning his head back to keep their eyes locked. “How do you save his life?” the man asked again.

“I-I don’t know!” Will exclaimed. “I need to see it first!”

“No, I don’t believe that you do,” the man told him. “I shot him in the upper left shoulder, right about here.” He pressed the barrel of his gun into Will’s left shoulder, finger still resting on the trigger. “How do you save him?”

“I would need to see if there’s an exit wound,” Will started, running his words together with how quickly he was speaking. “If not, I would have to take the bullet out and stop the bleeding, then stitch the wound closed.”

The man smiled. It should’ve been creepy,  _ terrifying, _ but Will still found him attractive - more so, with that beautiful smile. And he  _ hated  _ himself for it. 

“Very good,” the man said, finally releasing Will’s chin and moving back a step. Will took the opportunity to spin around as far as he could, gaze landing on a large man slumped against the wall behind him, a gaping hole in the center of his forehead. 

“Holy shit,” Will breathed, turning back to the man in front of him, eyes widened with fear.

The man shrugged. “He had harassed my sister on numerous occasions. He deserved to die.”

“Who the hell  _ are _ you?” Will shouted, heels digging into the hardwood floor and trying to push himself back, but his chair didn’t budge.

The man tossed the gun aside, the metal bouncing off the cushions of the couch. He slipped a hand into his pocket once again, this time pulling out a pocket knife and kneeling down in front of Will. As he started cutting away at the ropes around Will’s wrists, he said, “My name is Nico di Angelo. I am the head of one of the largest branches of the Mafia in New York City.” The ropes around Will’s wrist fell away, and Nico moved to his other arm. “Rather recently, we found ourselves without a full time doctor, which is where you come in, Doctor Solace.”

“So, what, you need me to fix up one of your...your  _ henchmen _ or whatever,” Will started, “and when I’m done, you’ll let me leave?”

Nico moved to cut away the rope binding Will’s ankles together. “Uh, no? If you prove yourself trustworthy, you will remain here as our full time doctor. If you prove yourself  _ un _ trustworthy, I will have you killed.”

“I don’t get any say in this?” Will asked. “At all?”

Nico rest his hands on Will’s knees. “What can I do to make you trust me? Anything you can think of,” he offered. “Besides your release, of course.”

Will only had to think for a second. “Can I call my mom?”

Nico was very obviously surprised, but nodded and reached into his pocket once more, taking out a familiar cell phone and setting it in Will’s hand. “On speaker phone, please.”

Will unlocked his phone, scrolling through his contacts until he found his mother’s name, hitting the call button and turning on the speaker. The call was answered almost immediately with a, “Hello?”

“Hey, Mama,” Will greeted, suppressing the shakes that threatened his voice. “I, uh, was just offered a nice job here in New York.”

“Oh my Lord,” his mother cried. “Will, honey, that’s amazing!”

“Yeah, um,” Will hesitated, and Nico raised an eyebrow. “The, um, the pay is really great, too. I’ll be able to send some money back home really often like I promised I would, and you’ll finally be able to buy that new house soon, okay?”

“Oh, Will, you are the  _ sweetest thing,” _ his mom said, but Will wasn’t really paying any attention to her anymore. He was focused more on the pretty man kneeling in front of him with a bright,  _ beautiful _ smile. 

“Hey, Mama?” Will said, interrupting whatever his mother had been saying. “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta go, I’m gonna be pretty busy, like, all the time now. Hopefully I can come visit soon, though, okay? Love you, Mama.”

He ended the call, keeping the phone in his hand and picking at the corner of the screen protector. “Um, was that, like, super out of line? You’re not gonna kill me for that, are you? ‘Cause that would mean that I just lied to my mom, more than once in one phone call.”

Nico kept smiling, finally rising to his feet. “No, it’s fine, I have plenty of money to spare. Your mother will have a new house in no time, I promise. I’ll pay you twice as much as any hospital in the city would have. Now, do we have a deal?”

 

* * *

 

 

Will was given his own room in Nico’s super big (gigantic) house (mansion), and after a week, he’d met a good amount of Nico’s...henchmen? Staff?

He’d met quite a few of these...employees (No, definitely not employees) in the middle of the night, when he’d been woken up to stitch up some wounds. The injuries were usually pretty minor - knife wounds or gunshots, for the most part - but in his first few nights, he’d already witnessed his first death.

(A group of about five men had been brought into the room that Will had been instructed to use, and Will had instantly located the worst injuries in the room. He’d hurried toward one of the men who was quickly losing blood, but Nico had put a hand on the center of Will’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. “He’s dead, Will,” Nico had told him, and when Will tried to argue that,  _ no, _ he was very clearly still alive and bleeding out, Nico insisted, “He’s  _ dead. _ Fix someone else.”)

One of Will’s favorite people to meet so far was Hazel, who introduced herself as Nico’s sister. She was, to say it politely,  _ very _ pregnant, and had pointed out her husband Frank to Will from across the room.

Will didn’t actually get the chance to meet Frank until he was woken in the middle of the night by Nico - still in a waistcoat and dress pants, as always, though there didn’t seem to be a drop of blood on him anywhere - who seemed panicked for the first time since Will had met him. “Will,” he started, shaking Will’s shoulder to wake him up. “Will, wake up! It’s Hazel, she’s--”

Will rolled out of bed, rubbing at his eyes for a quick moment before allowing Nico to pull him out of the room and off in the direction of Hazel and Frank’s room in the house. Will could hear Hazel crying out in pain from a little ways down the hall, and ran the rest of the way to the room. 

As soon as Will was in the doorway, he realized what the problem was: Hazel was  _ having a baby. _ Realistically, this shouldn’t have been a problem, but Will had just only graduated from medical school - they’d practiced how to stitch and how to stop someone from bleeding out, but they’d never practiced  _ delivering a baby. _ He’d read about it in his textbooks, sure, but the real thing was different!

Nico’s hand closed around Will’s wrist.  _ “Will,” _ he prompted, and Will flinched. 

“Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital?” Will asked frantically, but Nico’s grip tightened. “Right, okay. No hospitals, of course.”

 

The actual delivery of the baby went smoothly; absolutely no problems arose. Will had offered the family a few moments to get acquainted while he ran across the hall and threw up in the bathroom. He  _ really _ hoped he wouldn’t have to do that again, even if it was possibly a few years later.

He rinsed his mouth out in the sink and washed his hands before returning to the room to check the baby over and make sure she was healthy. 

When he opened the door, Nico was sitting on the edge of the bed next to his sister, his niece cradled closely in his arms. He was smiling that same beautiful smile as always that somehow seemed to brighten when he looked up at Will.

“Look at her, Will!” Nico said, voice dripping with excitement even as he tried his best to be as quiet as possible. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

Will couldn’t keep his own smile off his face, though he was able to hide his laughter when he looked toward Frank.

“She is, yes,” Will answered, “but I think Frank might get angry if you don’t let him hold his daughter.”

Nico’s eyes widened, like he hadn’t even considered such a thing, and he ducked his head. He whispered something to the baby before handing her off to her father. Nico rose from the bed, straightening his waistcoat before stepping up to Will and framing Will’s face in his hands. Rising up on his toes, Nico pressed a kiss to each of Will’s cheeks before pulling away and saying,  _ “Grazie, _ Will.”

 

* * *

 

 

Nico knew that inter-mob meetings were important, but that didn’t mean he had to like them. A lot of the time, one of the mob bosses would demand an increase to their territory, which would get a few of the other bosses to start arranging a new map of their territories, and that would lead to everyone shouting over their portion of the city, until Nico  _ finally _ got all of them to calm down and get back to business.

After  _ that _ had been settled, Percy Jackson, who reigned over the Upper East Side, brought up a complaint about some upstart group that recruited a few of his guys and killed a few others. Reyna in Washington Heights brought up a similar complaint, as well as Jason in Lower Manhattan (who brought his  _ wife _ to their  _ confidential meeting _ for some  _ damn _ reason. Maybe Nico should bring-- Who, Hazel? Make everyone angry at him and get her killed? Never mind, stupid idea).

Nico was able to get everyone settled again, announced that if the issue persisted they would discuss it at the next meeting, and asked for any other issues. When everyone had finished their mumbling and grumbling, Nico decided that he could  _ (finally) _ end this meeting, but just as he was about to, the door opened behind him.

Every head in the room snapped in Will’s direction and Nico was out of his seat in a second. Nico shoved Will back out into the hall, slapping him across the face and grabbing his chin before Will even had a proper chance to react. Nico pulled Will’s head down (screw him for being so much taller than Nico; it was harder to be intimidating like this) until the two of them were nearly nose to nose. 

“Do not,” Nico hissed,  _ “ever _ walk into that room when the door is closed. You should appreciate how lucky you are that this meeting is practically over, because if you had heard a  _ single word _ that anyone in there had said, they would have had all the reason in the  _ world _ to have you killed." He pointed behind himself at the closed door he'd just walked through. "In that room are  _ not _ my men. That room is where I hold my meetings with other mob heads, and you are  _ not _ allowed inside. I suggest you turn around, walk away, and forget you had been anywhere near this room, because I cannot risk losing... another doctor.”

Neither of them moved for more than a few seconds and Nico let his brain catch up to his mouth.  _ I can’t risk losing you. _ Had he really almost said that?

Nico finally let his hand drop from Will’s face, and they each took a step back. Will cleared his throat, ducking his head, and muttered, “I’ll, uh, come find you sometime later, then.” He turned away, heading back the way he came. 

Nico sighed, heading back into the conference room. He couldn’t wait to get all of those people  _ out of his house. _

 

* * *

 

 

After a few months in the di Angelo mansion, Will had gotten pretty used to the things that happened there, like being woken up in the middle of the night when people came back from raids needing their injuries healed, and Nico disappearing for a few hours in the middle of the day once a month for his meetings with the other mob heads. He had finally started getting comfortable in his new home, but there was one thing that bothered Will more than anything else, and it was seeing Nico covered in blood.

It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, because it wasn’t like he  _ meant  _ anything to Nico - he was just the doctor - but every time Will saw Nico with smears of blood across his skin and staining his clothes, Will got a sick feeling in his stomach. It usually went away as soon as Nico told him that it wasn’t his blood, that the other guys couldn’t even get a shot in (which was usually said with a pride-filled smile), but sometimes Will couldn’t shove the feeling away, not until the next morning at least.

So watching Nico stumble through the door, coated in blood as always, made Will’s skin crawl. When Will realized that Nico’s staggering steps weren’t from friendly shoves after a job well done, but from some kind of injury that Will was unable to locate from across the room.

Nico continued forward, looking like he might drop at any second, until he stopped in front of Will, fisting one hand in the front of Will’s shirt and his other gripping Will’s chin. He yanked Will’s head down like he’d done so many times before, slamming their lips together in some poor excuse for a kiss before falling away and demanding, “Fix me,” before collapsing forward into Will’s chest.

 

Everything hurt when Nico woke up, and he wondered briefly if he had been kidnapped or something, but he could easily recognize his own bed even when he was barely conscious. He grunted to alert whoever else might’ve been in the room that he was awake, before he could he could get his eyes to open.

“Will’s not here,” Hazel’s voice came from somewhere at Nico’s side. 

“I don’t think I asked,” Nico grumbled, though he was a little disappointed to hear that Will wasn’t around.

Hazel hummed. “Must’ve been in your sleep, then.”

Nico tipped his head to look at his sister. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been calling out for him for the last twenty minutes at least,” Hazel answered, casually flipping through a magazine as if she weren’t  _ actively _ trying to embarrass her brother (which she  _ had _ to have been doing). “You’ve been out for two days now, and he refused to leave your side until a few hours ago. He should be asleep right now and I’m  _ not _ waking him up for you.”

“Again, I don’t believe I asked,” Nico repeated. “What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be resting? And where’s the baby?”

“You have much bigger things to deal with right now than me and  _ my _ baby,” Hazel told him. “Like getting some rest yourself.”

Nico rolled his head back up toward the ceiling. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled, letting his eyes slip shut again. “The second Will wakes up, you send him in here, understand? I need to speak to him.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Hazel told him. “I’m your sister, not one of your mobsters.”

Nico frowned. “Don’t call them  _ mobsters, _ it sounds stupid.”

“Don’t worry about how I refer to your mobsters and get some rest,” Hazel ordered. “And besides, it’s not like Will won’t run right over here on his own, anyway.”

Nico was about to ask what she meant by that, but ended up passing out again instead.

 

When Nico woke up again, Frank was at his bedside polishing a very familiar gun with a white cloth. 

“Are you cleaning my gun?” Nico asked groggily. “Who gave you permission to touch my guns?”

“You did, when you were talking in your sleep,” Frank told him. “You also mentioned Will’s name a few times, any reason for that?”

“Shut up and put my gun down, or I’ll kill you with it,” Nico threatened, and Frank snorted. “You think I’m joking?”

“Yeah, I do,” Frank answered. “Because that would make Hazel unhappy, and you’d never let that happen.  _ And _ you’d have a fatherless niece.”

“Speaking of,” Nico commented, “are you and Hazel taking turns, one of you watches the baby, the other watches me? Is that what’s happening?”

“Pretty much, yeah. I apparently have  _ two _ children now,” Frank said. “But you didn’t answer my question about Will.”

“Because there’s nothing to talk about,” Nico insisted, glaring at his brother-in-law.

_ “Please,”  _ Frank scoffed. “I saw you kiss him before you passed out in his arms like a damsel in distress.”

“I  _ what?” _ Nico screeched, moving quickly to try to look Frank in the eye, but fell back against his pillows when he felt a sharp pain in his side.

Frank jumped up from his seat, setting Nico’s gun on his nightstand and moving to stand at his side. “Woah, don’t do that, I don’t think you’re allowed to move yet.”

“Not  _ allowed _ to move?” Nico hissed, gritting his teeth in pain. “Then what the hell am I  _ allowed _ to do?”

“I don’t know, drinking some water probably wouldn’t hurt!”

“Then get me a damn glass of water!” Nico exclaimed, and Frank stepped back from Nico’s bed. 

“Yeah, okay, I’ll be right back,” Frank told him. “Just don’t try to...move again.”

Frank spun around to walk out the door, only to have it open before he could reach for the doorknob. Will stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, the other covering his mouth as he yawned. Frank hurried to sidestep Will and run out into the hall, and Will slowly closed the door behind himself.

He made eye contact with Nico, seeming like he was holding himself back from something before he launched himself across the room, dropping onto the edge of Nico’s bed and pressing their lips together in a much sweeter kiss than before. Will’s hands came up to frame Nico’s face as they kissed, and stayed there as he pulled away slowly, leaving his forehead resting against Nico’s.

“Please tell me you didn’t kiss me out of delirium,” Will whispered, “because this would be  _ really _ weird if you did.”

Nico took a second to consider how to respond. “I...probably wouldn’t have if I wasn’t missing so much blood,” he admitted, and felt Will tense above him. He felt the blond about to pull away, and Nico hurried to wrap a hand around Will’s wrist. “But I still  _ wanted to.” _

“Oh, thank God,” Will breathed, relaxing and guiding their lips together once again. Nico wound a hand into Will’s hair, pulling him closer just as Will jumped back. Nico frowned up at him, but Will exclaimed, “You haven’t had anything to eat or drink in  _ days!” _

Nico rolled his eyes. “Frank left to get me some water.”

“You still need food, too,” Will insisted. He slipped a hand down from Nico’s cheek, resting over his bandaged abdomen. “And I’ll need to change your bandages, too. I’ll go get those, I’ll be right back.” He pressed a chaste kiss to Nico’s lips before rushing away, closing the door behind himself.

Nico relaxed into his pillows once more, letting out a soft sigh and thought,  _ he’s too much, _ with an easy smile gracing his lips.

 

* * *

 

 

Nico would’ve been embarrassed to say that, after only a week, he was already used to sleeping in the same bed as Will. So he never said anything, especially not to Will, who would hold it over his head for as long as he could. But, after the raid he’d just returned home from, Nico wanted nothing more than to curl up beside Will in bed and sleep for at least twelve hours.

However, as soon as Nico pushed open his front door, he knew something was wrong. The house seemed far too quiet for his liking, and when he walked into the living room, he saw why: three of his usual security guards laid dead in the room, and half of the furniture pieces had been overturned - someone had broken in.

Nico pulled out his gun in case someone was still in the house and began taking a look around. He went by Hazel and Frank’s room first, having never felt happier that the three of them had taken a vacation that week for an anniversary; the room seemed mostly untouched. He continued his search, walking through the kitchen and dining room, glancing inside every bathroom he passed, until finally making it up to his own bedroom. He closed his eyes and took a breath before nudging the door open with his foot.

The room was empty. None of the furniture had been disrupted and the bed was still neatly made. Nico scanned the room, peeking inside the bathroom, though there was nothing out of the ordinary there, either. He crept back into his room, stepping toward the bed and spotting a note folded up against his pillows, white paper nearly blending in with white sheets. Nico dropped his gun on the mattress and picked up the note.

_ How do you fix a broken heart without a consult from your doctor? _

What kind of  _ bullshit _ was that? Was that supposed to be some kind of ransom note?

Nico crumpled the note in his fist with a growl, climbing off the bed and picking up his gun as he went. He left the room and passed one of his men as he went down the hall, who asked what they were expected to do because of the ransacking. Nico was tempted to shoot him, but he had more important people to shoot right then. 

“We’re going back out,” he announced when he made it back to the living room, where most of his people had gathered. “Castellan’s expecting us.”

 

Will had been tied to a chair and blindfolded a total of twice, but he first time had been much more preferable. His head hurt, just like it had the first time, and he still felt like he was going to throw up from the nerves - and maybe from a concussion - but this time he hurt in more places and he could feel blood drying on his skin. It itched, but he didn’t have a hand to scratch at it with. Which wasn’t necessarily the worst part, just the most irritating. 

Anyway, Will was sick of being tied to chairs. It wasn’t something he would want to do again.

Will had just enough time to contemplate the fact that he was perhaps a bit too calm about the fact that he’d been kidnapped for the second time in six months, probably by another mob boss, when he started to hear voices upstairs. Sure, he’d been hearing people talking for a while now, however long he’d been conscious, but now those voices were raised, and then there was-- Yep, gunshots. Stomping. Shouting. Thumps that were probably bodies hitting the floor above him. More footsteps, except those were different, somehow. Stairs? Yes, footsteps on stairs.

He heard a few more gunshots, a little bit more shouting, all much closer and definitely in the same room as him, and then his blindfold was gone. Nico was there in front of him, already working at the knots around his wrists, covered in a lot more blood than usual - some of it dried and browning already, some of it fresh.

“Will, are you okay?” he asked frantically, reaching up and cupping Will’s cheeks in his hands. “Are you hurt? Who did this, do you remember?”

Will used his one free hand to scratch at the dried blood on his own cheek.  _ Finally. _ “Um, he had an eyepatch? There’s probably not too many of those, right? That narrows it down?”

Nico smiled at him, darting forward for a kiss. “That narrows it down. I’m going to kill Ethan for even laying a finger on you. He’s going to suffer, I’m going to make sure of it, I’ll kill him myself. As soon as I can get you somewhere that I know you’re safe, he’s going to die.”

 

Nico had made a few phone calls as soon as they got in the car, and even with Will leaning right up against him the whole ride, he couldn’t make out what was being said on the other line. Will had almost fallen asleep right there in the backseat of the car, lulled by Nico’s hushed voice, but he did his best to keep his eyes open - who knew just  _ how many _ things were wrong with him at that moment.

The car slowed to a stop just as Nico was hanging up his phone. The door swung open and Nico stepped out, holding a hand out for Will and supporting him as they walked up to the doors of an expensive-looking hotel. 

Will noticed a few people staring at them as they walked through the lobby, but that was probably to be expected, considering they were both covered in blood. Thankfully, the eyes only followed them as far as the lobby, and when they continued on down a hallway, there was no one to see them.

“Don’t we need to check in first?” Will asked, noticing how his words had started to slur together.

A woman in a hotel uniform came around the corner in front of them, walking past like she didn’t even see them, but Will noticed her slipping something into Nico’s hand.

“No need,” Nico answered him after a few seconds, “we’ve already got a room.” He pulled Will into an elevator, hitting the button for the top floor and relaxing against the wall. Will was still leaning heavily against him, and Nico reached up to brush a few strands of hair out of Will’s eyes. “How are you feeling?”

Will hummed. “Tired, mostly. Wanna take a bath.”

“A bath, not a shower?” Nico asked, and Will nodded his head. “Would you take a shower if I joined you?”

“No, but you can join me for a bath,” Will offered, and Nico scrunched up his nose. “What, not a fan of baths?”

“Not usually,” Nico answered, and the elevator doors dinged open. Nico adjusted his grip around Will’s waist and the two of them walked out into the hall. There was one door on either side of them, one labeled Suite A and the other labeled Suite B; Nico lead them toward the latter.

“I called ahead and asked that a first aid kit be brought up to the room,” Nico told him as he unlocked their door. “Let’s get you settled into that bath first, though.”

They walked through the doorway, heading immediately for the bathroom. Nico sat Will down on the closed toilet seat while he went to turn on the water for the bath, making sure the water came out hot. Then, the moved toward Will, helping him to pull off his shirt, and then standing him up to pull off his pants.

“Do you remember what they did?” Nico asked, tracing his fingers underneath a cut on Will’s side.

“Not really,” Will answered. “Getting hit in the head seems to mess up my memory, apparently.”

Nico frowned, reaching up to brush a hand through Will’s curls, but Will flinched away at his touch. Nico sighed. “Alright, in the bath. Get cleaned, and afterwards I’ll fix  _ you _ up for a change.”

 

Will nearly fell asleep in the tub, so Nico had rolled up his sleeves and taken over scrubbing away the dried blood on Will’s skin and in his hair. When Nico deemed him clean enough, he helped Will rise out of the tub, dried him off carefully with a towel, and eased him into bed. Now that Will was fresh out of the bath, he refused to put his bloodied clothes back on, and instead decided to lay naked in the bed with the sheets pulled up to his waist.

Nico dug through the first aid kit that had been dropped off to their room, pulling out gauze and bandages and antiseptic creams. He carefully applied the bandages and things to the worst of Will’s wounds - an alarmingly large gash above his hipbone that most likely needed stitches, the cut higher up on his abdomen that Nico had traced with his fingers before the bath, and a jagged knife wound on the side of his thigh. Nico had Will talk him through how to check for a concussion, but even after he’d done exactly what Will said, Nico was still unsure of the results. “As much as I hate to say it,” Nico told him then, “you may need to go to a hospital.”

Nico stepped away to clean up the leftover medical supplies, taking a moment to loosen his tie and remove his waistcoat before lying down beside Will in the bed. He noticed a bruise beginning to form under Will’s eye, and since Nico didn’t have any ice to help with the swelling, he placed a kiss there instead. Will smiled dopily at him.

Nico let his head drop down onto Will’s shoulder. “You know I love you, right?” Nico asked quietly, and Will wrapped his arm around him in response. “And...you know they did this to try to get a rise out of me? They only took you to bother me.”

“I think they bothered you,” Will commented.

“Yes, they did,” Nico replied, frowning with his eyes focused on Will’s bandaged abdomen. “And they will all pay for taking the one that I love from me.” Will’s hand brushed across Nico’s back, calming him down with every touch. Nico took a few breaths, quieting the angry thoughts in his head. By the time he’d deemed himself relaxed enough to speak again, he thought Will might’ve fallen asleep. That didn’t stop him from saying what was on his mind, anyway.

“I don’t like putting you in danger,” Nico whispered. “I don’t like the thought of you getting hurt again, I don’t want to  _ risk _ that.” He took another breath, shakier this time. “What if it’s better that you leave me? If you pretend that you were never associated with the Mafia or...or me, in any way?”

“No,” Will breathed, and Nico flinched. He hadn’t been expecting a response. He didn’t think he could accept that response, either.

Nico propped himself up on an elbow, staring down into Will’s eyes as he continued. “I have connections, I can get you the best references, and you can go back to your old life, work at a hospital. Help people that  _ deserve it, _ instead of a bunch of killers. I will still send money to your mother every month, and you will be  _ safe. _ You will have a normal life,  _ away from me.” _

“And what if I don’t want that?” Will shot back plainly. “What if I want to stay with you? Because I  _ do, _ even if that means I have to see you covered in blood a hell of a lot more often than I’d like. I’ll have to look out for myself a little more, I’ll start carrying a gun, or something.” Will reached up, tangling a hand in Nico’s hair. “You won’t let anyone hurt me, ever again.”

“I won’t,” Nico promised, swooping down and catching Will’s lips with his. “I swear, I won’t.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ethan Nakamura suffered a painful death. The wounds he inflicted on Will were mimicked, then multiplied.

 

* * *

 

 

Will tended to stay away from Nico’s meetings with other mob heads, after what happened the first time, but he also knew that it was best to catch Nico right as he left the room. Otherwise, Nico would end up either asleep on the living room couch or in their bed within five minutes of the meeting’s end.

So Will waited outside the door, playing games on his phone until the door flew open and Nico marched out into the hall. He almost didn’t see Will before he turned in the direction of the nearest place to take a nap, but Will grabbed his arm before he could get far. Before Will could get a word out, though, Nico dragged him down the hall, away from the group still leaving the conference room. 

Nico took Will into their bedroom, knocked him back onto the bed, and curled up beside him on the mattress. “I hate those meetings,” Nico groaned, one arm wrapping around around his boyfriend while the other loosened his tie. “I just want to  _ sleep. _ Sleep with me.”

“Wait, hang on,” Will told him, sitting up and bringing a whining Nico with him. “We’re going on a vacation.”

Nico frowned, blinking a few times in confusion. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Vacation,” Will repeated. “I need you to tell me when you can clear your schedule for a few days so I can buy plane tickets.”

“Plane tickets…” Nico muttered, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye. “Can we-- Do we have to do this now? I’m too tired.” He knocked his head forward into Will’s collarbone, already feeling the pull of his exhaustion into sleep.

Will hummed. “Alright, but every ten minutes you sleep is one less suit you’re allowed to bring.”

“Wake me up in nine minutes,” Nico told him, and then he was out.

Will laid back slowly, letting Nico fall with him, and slipped his phone back out of his pocket. He went back to the game he’d been playing, and when nine minutes passed and Nico was still sleeping soundly against his chest, Will grinned and let him sleep. It wasn’t until more than half an hour had passed that Nico finally started to wake up, starting with a soft sigh in his sleep, then curling closer to Will, and lastly rolling away and stretching out - a process Will had gotten used to after the past month or two.

Nico smiled tiredly in Will’s direction.  _ “Buongiorno amore mio,”  _ he whispered, tucking himself back into Will’s side and pressing a kiss to the underside of his jaw. He yawned, nuzzling into Will’s shoulder, seeming like he might fall back asleep in a second. “I fell asleep in the middle of something, didn’t I?”

Will dropped his phone on the mattress beside him, rolling over and practically caging Nico in between his arms, laying his weight on top of him. “You did, yeah,” Will told him, peppering Nico’s face and neck with kisses. “We’re going on vacation, I need to buy plane tickets, and you’re only allowed to bring one suit.”

“I have a hard time believing that I agreed to all of that,” Nico responded. “The suit part, particularly.”

“Oh, but you did,” Will said. “And I need to know when to buy those tickets for. I’m thinking we’ll need about five days.”

“For what?” Nico asked. “Where are we going?”

Will kissed the tip of Nico’s nose. “If I told you, it would ruin the surprise.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Let me handle the flight, at least. I don’t do commercial flights, and I refuse to go through security at an airport.”

“So high maintenance,” Will joked. “What are we doing if we’re not taking a plane?”

“Oh, no, we’ll be taking a plane,” Nico said. “A private flight, instead. I can charter a private jet.”

 

Will  _ much _ prefered the private jet to a commercial flight. It was much quieter, and roomier, and no long lines at security. Nico, who usually hated flying - said it was the only thing that made him nervous - had never so enjoyed a flight. Nearly half of the flight was spent with the two of them making on out the couch like teenagers.

When they exited the plane, there was a car waiting for them on the tarmac. A man exited the vehicle, approached them and welcomed them to Tennessee, and went to collect their luggage. Nico spun around, grabbing Will’s chin and tugging him down slightly. “What the  _ hell _ are we doing in Tennessee?” he asked, hoping his tone was somehow intimidating.

However, Will simply grinned. Nico rolled his eyes, and when Will pursed his lips, Nico reached up for a chaste kiss.

They climbed into the car once their luggage was loaded into the trunk, and Will handed the driver a slip of paper with an address written on it. Nico tried a few more times to get an answer out of Will as to where they were going, but Will kept his lips sealed (except for when Nico’s tongue was in his mouth - it was a long drive, okay?)

It was when the car turned into a subdivision that Nico started demanding an answer and refused to accept another  _ no. _

Will sighed, staring out the window and watching the houses pass. “One of these houses in this neighborhood happened to have been bought with  _ your _ money. Not under your name, of course, but I figured you might want to meet the person that’s been using the money you send her every month.”

Nico’s eyes widened. “No,” he breathed.

Will thought he might’ve seen the house from the listing his mother sent him. “Oh! I think that’s the one!”

“Will!”

The car slowed to a stop, and Will reached for the door handle, ready to jump out of the car when Nico stopped him with a hand on his arm.

_ “Will,” _ Nico repeated. “You brought me to your mother’s? You won’t let me wear a suit to meet your  _ mother?” _

“Absolutely not,” Will told him, and climbed out of the car. Will went to take his luggage from the driver as Nico climbed out of the car after him, following him up the steps on the front porch and swatting Will’s hand away when he reached for the doorbell.

“Will,” Nico said again. “I can’t be wearing  _ skinny jeans _ to meet your  _ mother.” _

“Oh my god,” Will breathed, smiling as bright as the sun - which was much brighter here than in New York. Nico guessed that’s how Will got all the freckles. “You’re  _ nervous. _ You, of all people, are nervous to meet a fifty-year-old woman. I thought flying was the only thing that scared you?”

“Shut up,” Nico told him. “Please, Will, let me change into the suit I brought.”

“No way, darlin’,” Will insisted, hitting the doorbell before Nico could stop him. “Besides, you need to wear jeans like those more often, they show off your ass  _ much _ better.”

Nico was about to complain again when the door opened, and a woman about Nico’s height stepped out onto the porch, dragging Will into a hug without any greeting. Nico was startled at first, the feeling quickly melting away into a sense of awkwardness, like he was intruding on something foreign -  _ family _ was never something he experienced with anyone except Hazel, and they weren’t like  _ this. _

Will’s mother took her arms out of the hug, taking Will’s head in her hands and pulling him down until she could kiss his forehead. “It’s so nice to see you again, honey,” she said with a smile just as bright as Will’s, and when she tilted her head to the side, her eyes landed on Nico. “Who’s this, hon?”

Will jumped back, sliding an arm around Nico’s waist, and said, “Mama, this is my boyfriend, Nico.”

Nico held out a hand stiffly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Solace,” he said, nearly wincing from all the awkward.

Instead of feeling a soft hand in his own, Nico found himself wrapped up in a hug, surrounded by the smell of cinnamon. “It’s very nice to meet you, too, Nico,” Ms. Solace said kindly as she pulled away, keeping her hands on Nico’s arms. “But, please, none of that  _ Ms. Solace. _ It’s either Mama or Naomi.”

Nico nodded. “Of course.”

“Alright, the two of you,” Naomi said, finally stepping away. “Come inside, I’ll fix us up some dinner.”

Naomi stepped back into the house, and Will pressed a kiss to Nico’s cheek. “Dinner? But it’s only noon,” Nico pointed out.

“It’s lunch, babe,” Will told him. “Dinner is lunch, and supper is dinner. And you’re adorable when you’re nervous. I didn’t know you were shy!”

“I’m not shy!” Nico hissed, trying to keep his voice down as he continued. “I’m an intimidating Mafia boss. I’ve  _ killed _ people!”

Will grabbed his suitcase in one hand and Nico’s in the other, and leaned down to kiss the tip of Nico’s nose. “And this week, you’re the CEO of some fake New York company that my mom’s never heard of.”

Nico frowned. “You’re very lucky that I love you,” he said. “Anyone else would be dead by now.”

“Aw, I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! tell me what you thought about it at buoyantsaturn on tumblr!!!


End file.
